Former duo La Roux has downsized to just singer Elly Jackson after creative differences. Source: Supplied

“MUSICAL differences” is the go-to cliche to explain bands losing members, just as Hollywood stars get “exhausted”.

Since their global hit Bulletproof in 2009 British duo La Roux have downsized to just singer Elly Jackson.

Elly Jackson is reluctant to talk about her split from musical partner Ben Langmaid.Source: Supplied

Departed partner Ben Langmaid issued a statement pointing out he co-wrote over half of the new La Roux album,Trouble In Paradise.

“We’ve had creative differences in the past (what band hasn’t?) but we always got through them and usually the music benefits,” Langmaid wrote.

“I am truly saddened that it has ended this way, but I am immensely proud of what we achieved together ... no one can take that away from me.”

Jackson is promoting the album without trying to promote the split which, she insists, is as boring as good old musical differences.

“It’s terribly, terribly unfair that (the split with Langmaid) has to infringe on this album. But I couldn’t have not said it, I couldn’t have lied about it.

“Interviewers have been really aggressive, saying that the story wasn’t dramatic enough. There’s been nasty pressure which I don’t appreciate.”

Jackson is keen to not add fuel to the fire.

“People are asking who did what and what does it mean that he says he wrote half the album, blah blah. I’d love to go into detail and explain how that’s vastly untrue but I don’t want to spend my time talking about that.

“There’s nothing else to say, there really isn’t. The proof is in the record. I’m going to make more records. And it’s certainly not going to take five years again.”

Jackson is less concerned about No.1s and more about making “great records that I’m proud of”.Source: Supplied

While Jackson co-writes with hit producers Jeff Bhasker and Al Shux, she started looking for outside partners before Langmaid’s departure.

“There had been problems for a long time. It wasn’t a sudden thing. I’d only ever worked with one person, I wanted to know what it was like working with someone new.”

Jackson also says one of the main issues was her desire to move La Roux’s early ’80s sound forward.

“The first album was tinny and anaemic,” she says. “That’s not a negative, that’s how I wanted it to sound. It’s just not what I wanted four years later.”

While five years between albums is a risk in the new short-attention-span world, Jackson says patient fans realised she was making the right album.

“I could see my career going in a direction I didn’t want it to go in. So I’ve gone away and made a record in the direction I want my career to go in.

“I didn’t want to repeat myself. I know a lot of people thought ‘Oh that’s the girl that sang Bulletproof, that’ll be that’ and that I might have one more hit if I’m lucky. I want to be making music for the rest of my life hopefully.

“I don’t want it to be about having a hit or a No. 1, I want it to be about making great records that I’m proud of.”

Bulletproof

Jackson admits the success of Bulletproof (it has sold 2.5 million copies in the US alone) is something of an albatross.

“However much I’m very proud when I’m reminded how much Bulletproof sold and the album sold, although most of the sales figures were made up by single sales not album sales; that wasn’t really a place I really wanted to be in,” Jackson says.

“It’s nice to have a hit, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also a little bit trapping. That’s certainly not how I wanted to live my life, teetering on this edge of having a hit or not having a hit.”

■Trouble in Paradise (Universal) is out tomorrow

Elly Jackson performs at a concert at Luna Park, Sydney, in 2010.Source: Supplied

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